Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Emulation or plural modes
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-12
2001-01-30
Popovici, Dov (Department: 2722)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Emulation or plural modes
C358S001150, C358S001180
Reexamination Certificate
active
06181434
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus and a method of controlling a process of printing an image on a recording sheet in accordance with print data input via an interface, and a storage medium storing print control programs, and more particularly to a serial printer for printing information while a head as a print unit is reciprocally scanned and a recording sheet is transported in a direction perpendicular to the scan direction of the head.
2. Related Background Art
Printers of this type, particularly serial printers, are each equipped with a plurality of interfaces and perform a print process by automatically exchanging interfaces in accordance with reception conditions of print data, reciprocally scanning a head and transporting a recording sheet in a direction perpendicular to the scan direction of the head. A print process is also performed by receiving a printer control command and print data from a host computer, and a printed recording sheet is ejected upon reception of a paper ejection command to thereby complete a series of print sequences.
Depending upon an application program or specific emulation program (page descriptive language analysis program) of a host computer, a paper ejection command among printer control commands is not supplied from the host computer and the printed sheet is left in the printer even after the print process is completed. A printed sheet may also be left in the printer when the print process is suspended because of some trouble of the host computer.
In a process of printing information supplied from a non-PC apparatus such as a digital camera, an Internet television and a television game machine, since the non-PC apparatus has no means for editing image data and the format of each print data is different, each print data is printed independently on a different recording sheet.
FIGS. 9A
to
9
C are schematic diagrams illustrating a continuous print state when there is a remaining sheet in a conventional print control apparatus.
FIG. 9A
illustrates print data, e.g., text data of a page unit first received,
FIG. 9B
illustrates print data, e.g., graphics data, and
FIG. 9C
illustrates a print output obtained by receiving print data from an unrepresented first interface, printing it out, stopping printing without receiving a paper ejection command, immediately thereafter receiving print data from an unrepresented second interface and resuming printing.
With a printer having such a paper ejection control, for example, after the print data shown in
FIG. 9A
is printed out and the printed sheet remains in the printer, if the next print data shown in
FIG. 9B
is received from another interface, both the print data shown in
FIGS. 9A and 9B
and received from different interfaces are printed out on the same sheet.
Further, if any trouble occurs while print data supplied from a host computer via a first interface is printed and if data is received from another host computer via a second interface while the printed sheet remains in the printer, both the print data are printed out on the same sheet.
Still further, as described above, according to the related art, in order to print a plurality of files such as shown in
FIGS. 10A
to
10
C on a single sheet such as shown in
FIG. 10D
, it is necessary to print the files after editing them by application software.
Furthermore, in order to print a mixed document such as shown in
FIG. 11D
having image data such as a photograph and text data, application software for desk-top publishing is usually required.
If image data is to be written in a document by using application software such as “Photoshop”, the text data is also required to have the information amount generally same as the image data so that the size of each file becomes large.
After a photograph such as shown in
FIG. 11A
is directly printed from a digital camera, the printed sheet is again placed on a paper feed cassette and print data such as shown in
FIG. 11B
is printed in a superposed manner to obtain the print result shown in FIG.
11
D. In this case, the print start position of the print data shown in
FIG. 11B
is required to be shifted.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-described problems. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print control apparatus, a print control method, and a storage medium storing programs readable by a computer, wherein a print environment either a mixed print process or an independent print process can be easily configured in accordance with a print mode intended by a user, the mixed print process printing sequentially received print data on the same recording medium with a printer engine without ejecting the recording medium, and the independent print process printing sequentially received print data on different recording media by reliably ejecting each recording medium.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a print control apparatus is provided which comprises: a plurality of interface means for receiving print information from information processing apparatuses via a predetermined communications medium; detecting means for detecting, after first print information received by one interface means is printed on a fed first recording medium with a printer engine, whether the first recording medium has been ejected; first setting means for setting a first print mode for ejecting the first recording medium and printing second print information on a fed second recording medium, if the detecting means detects that the first recording medium remains in the printer engine at the time when the second print information is received by another interface means; and control means for controlling to execute either a mixed print process or an independent print process in accordance with the set state of the first print mode set by the first setting means, the mixed print process printing the second print information received by the other interface means on the fed first recording medium, and the independent print process printing the second print information on the second recording medium to be fed after the first recording medium is ejected.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, the control means controls the printer engine so as to execute the mixed print process of printing the second print information received by the other interface means on the fed first recording medium, if the first setting means does not set the first print mode.
According to a third aspect of the invention, a print control apparatus is provided which comprises: a plurality of interface means for receiving print information from information processing apparatuses via a predetermined communications medium; detecting means for detecting, after first print information received by one interface means is printed on a fed first recording medium with a printer engine, whether the first recording medium has been ejected; second setting means for setting a second print mode for ejecting the first recording medium and printing second print information on a fed second recording medium, if the detecting means detects that the first recording medium remains in the printer engine at the time when the second print information is received by the same interface means after a predetermined time lapse after the first print information is printed; and control means for controlling to execute either a mixed print process or an independent print process in accordance with the set state of the second print mode set by the second setting means, the mixed print process printing the second print information received by another interface means on the fed first recording medium, and the independent print process printing the second print information on the second recording medium to be fed after the first recording medium is ejected.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the control means controls the printer engine so as to execute the mixed print process of printing the s
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Popovici Dov
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